Last week President Barack Obama signed a bipartisan multiyear Farm Bill, which ensures the continuation of government-subsidized and directed agriculture for the benefit of giant agribusiness corporations.

Republicans and Democrats have praised the bill, which passed the Senate 68-32 and the House 251-166, saying it was a much-needed reform that ends $5 billion in direct payments to farmers. Among them are 1,500 cliff dwellers in New York City, "374 on the Upper East Side (of Manhattan) alone," the New York Post reported in 2013.

U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-East Moline, a member of the Agriculture Committee, supported the bill, saying it "keeps a stable and strong crop insurance program in place so farmers who are at the mercy of Mother Nature can continue to feed our nation and the world, while conserving and protecting critical habitats and fragile soils." Bustos said that despite some cuts in food aid to the poor, people in Illinois should not be hurt.

The bill will cost taxpayers nearly $1 trillion over the next 10 years, much of it going to the food stamp or SNAP program.

U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Channahon, also backed the bill: "This long overdue legislation will allow growers and producers to plan ahead and make smarter decisions about future harvests, giving them more control over their businesses. It strengthens our farm safety net, helping farmers protect against natural disasters, and represents a big step forward for getting things done in Washington."

Is this bill a good deal for all Americans? Not everyone thinks so, including conservative U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and the liberal Washington Post editorial board.

"We're going to spend almost a trillion dollars on what should be called a food security bill. And the language we hear from colleagues is totally parochial or product-based," Coburn charged in a 21-minute speech on the Senate floor. Critics like Coburn say the bill creates warped incentives based on the overwhelming clout of giant agribusiness companies in Congress.

"We create wealth (in the U.S.) by making sure the risks of capital investment are responsive to market forces. This bill is anything but that. ... There's no place else in this country where you can go into a business enterprise and be guaranteed that your revenue is going to be secure," Coburn said. "We've even added a new supplemental, low-cost crop insurance program that all of us who aren't farmers are going to pay the deductible on. Plus, we're going to subsidize 62 to 63 percent of all crop insurance in the country. ... Therefore, markets aren't going to work.

"You're guaranteed 86 percent of your revenue and taxpayers are paying most of the cost of the insurance for that."

Coburn, a physician from Muskogee, worked with Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., "to put some limits on the wealthiest (people) when it comes to crop insurance." Those limits passed the Senate and the House, but were taken out in a joint conference committee.

Page 2 of 2 - The Washington Post echoed Coburn. "For every step the bill takes toward better federal agriculture policy, it takes two or three steps in the other direction. Worst of all, it creates two new programs - Agriculture Risk Coverage and a Supplemental Coverage Option - which, taken together, all but guarantee beneficiaries' revenues never fall below 86 percent of their earnings during years of high crop prices. Contrary to what its apologists claim, the 2014 farm bill is not a hard-won triumph for bipartisanship. Instead ... This is a bill of, by and for the agriculture lobby, which, through sheer power and self-interested persistence, ground down reform advocates over three years.

"The premise of the legislation - that this country would be at risk of shortages and soaring food prices without multiple layers of central planning in agriculture - is simply not true," The Post said.

I don't know about you, but I agree with the editorial, and with Tom Coburn. It's too bad he's retiring.